Monthly Archives: June 2016

After the past 3 days of gains, the pain felt from last Friday and this past Monday is almost erased.

At this point, as the morning’s futures were seeking to reduce the loss even more, the market was only 2% lower from where it left off last Thursday.

After hearing about how the 2 days of losses were the worst of the year, we are now hearing that the past 2 days were the best gains of the year.

Make that 3 days.

Well, at least since February, when Jamie Dimon may have single handedly turned the market around by spending $26 million of his own funds to pick up shares of his own company, that he felt had suddenly become well under-valued.

A couple of days ago that company was close to being back at its February 11th levels, but then broad based buying set in.

While yesterday’s close also had more buying characterize it, those closing gains weren’t as strong as the previous days, but the futures market is still looking to add more.

Today’s close, though, was still moving higher and higher.

With this kind of buying, or selling, for that matter, you never really know what will come first.

Will traders try to capitalize and head in the other direction in the fear that others will beat them to it and leave them holding the bag, or do they pile on for fear of getting left out from the celebrations ahead?

They certainly didn’t head in the other direction today and the buying strength at the close didn’t indicate any reversal for tomorrow, either.

As the market does head higher the technicians also begin exerting their influence and the emotions of fear and greed may take a back seat as traders have to deal with those annoying resistance levels.

Breaking one of those levels isn’t a guarantee of continued climbs higher, particularly as there is often testing of the level, but if the 2137 level is broke, tested and broken again, there may be lots of uncharted territory for further upside.

Those are lots of ifs, but before that point, is the 2112 level of just a week ago.

So it may be interesting to watch the market work its way higher as it ended today less than 1% below that 2012 level.

At this point I wouldn’t mind some consolidation and building a base or a support level and then trying to climb anew from there.

In the meantime, while overall volatility is dropping rapidly, some sectors still remain very attractive, even as their risk seems to be becoming less and less.

That may be where the opportunity awaits and that is where the opportunity has already been.

After the past 3 days of gains, the pain felt from last Friday and this past Monday is almost erased.

At this point, as the morning’s futures are seeking to reduce the loss even more, the market is only 2% lower from where it left off last Thursday.

After hearing about how the 2 days of losses were the worst of the year, we are now hearing that the past 2 days were the best gains of the year.

Well, at least since February, when Jamie Dimon may have single handedly turned the market around by spending $26 million of his own funds to pick up shares of his own company, that he felt had suddenly become well under-valued.

A couple of days ago that company was close to being back at its February 11th levels, but then broad based buying set in.

While yesterday’s close also had more buying characterize it, those closing gains weren’t as strong as the previous days, but the futures market is still looking to add more.

With this kind of buying, or selling, for that matter, you never really know what will come first.

Will traders try to capitalize and head in the other direction in the fear that others will beat them to it and leave them holding the bag, or do they pile on for fear of getting left out from the celebrations ahead?

As the market does head higher the technicians also begin exerting their influence and the emotions of fear and greed may take a back seat as traders have to deal with those annoying resistance levels.

Breaking one of those levels isn’t a guarantee of continued climbs higher, particularly as there is often testing of the level, but if the 2137 level is broke, tested and broken again, there may be lots of uncharted territory for further upside.

Those are lots of ifs, but before that point, is the 2112 level of just a week ago.

So it may be interesting to watch the market work its way higher.

At this point I wouldn’t mind some consolidation and building a base or a support level and then trying to climb anew from there.

In the meantime, while overall volatility is dropping rapidly, some sectors still remain very attractive, even as their risk seems to be becoming less and less.

That may be where the opportunity awaits and that is where the opportunity has already been.

It’s generally considered a good sign when there’s buying going into the close of a session.

That’s especially the case if the session itself was a negative one.

Buying into the close of a negative session reflects the confidence that nothing is going to happen overnight in worldwide markets to make the buyer look stupid the following morning.

There was some considerable buying heading into the close of trading on Monday and those who did ended up not feeling any more stupid and more importantly not feeling any more poor the next day.

There was also buying going into the close of yesterday’s session, but that kind of buying may have been different than that seen on Monday.

Yesterday the market was higher all day and the final rush of purchases may have been less an expression of confidence, but more an expression of fear.

The old “fear of missing out.”

Few people want to get shut out from participation in a rally and often buying begets more buying, just as selling can beget more selling.

This morning, however, it appears as if yesterday’s late buying has some legs as the futures are again pointing to a triple digit gain, although it may be far more tentative than was the gain seen yesterday.

The one thing that will become more and more obvious as the initial drama of the Brexit election results are digested is that little will change overnight, as it is really in Great Britain’s hands to initiate the process.

Considering that they won’t have a new Prime Minister for another few months and David Cameron has made it clear that he’s not the one to have the negotiations with the European Union, the only thing that should really be of near term concern is whether other nations or other parts of the United Kingdom seek to make changes.

That’s still anyone’s guess, but most countries may note that things aren’t necessarily going to get better for the British economy as they leave the EU.

The real surprise is that The UK voted against its economic interests. Most other countries are not likely to do that.

I was hoping that the gains would continue today and I’d like to see some assignments this week for the 2 new positions opened, although, once again, I might not mind rolling them over, even if they are in the money.

Doing so, reminds me of what was fairly common practice about 5 years ago. Back then, though, volatility was high for most every stock in the purchase universe.

This time around, selected stocks and selected sectors are offering very attractive premiums, even as the broader volatility is still low.

Those premiums are sometimes hard to resist, especially if the downside seems to be well defined.

After today’s very strong gain and with a little bit of additional buying heading into the close, I wouldn’t mind some profit taking to end the last 2 days of the trading week. If faced with assignments, I would like to simply buy those same 2 stocks right back, as that has been the rule for 2016.

It’s generally considered a good sign when there’s buying going into the close of a session.

That’s especially the case if the session itself was a negative one.

Buying into the close of a negative session reflects the confidence that nothing is going to happen overnight in worldwide markets to make the buyer look stupid the following morning.

There was some considerable buying heading into the close of trading on Monday and those who did ended up not feeling any more stupid and more importantly not feeling any more poor the next day.

There was also buying going into the close of yesterday’s session, but that kind of buying may have been different than that seen on Monday.

Yesterday the market was higher all day and the final rush of purchases may have been less an expression of confidence, but more an expression of fear.

The old “fear of missing out.”

Few people want to get shut out from participation in a rally and often buying begets more buying, just as selling can beget more selling.

This morning, however, it appears as if yesterday’s late buying has some legs as the futures are again pointing to a triple digit gain, although it may be far more tentative than was the gain seen yesterday.

The one thing that will become more and more obvious as the initial drama of the Brexit election results are digested is that little will change overnight, as it is really in Great Britain’s hands to initiate the process.

Considering that they won’t have a new Prime Minister for another few months and David Cameron has made it clear that he’s not the one to have the negotiations with the European Union, the only thing that should really be of near term concern is whether other nations or other parts of the United Kingdom seek to make changes.

That’s still anyone’s guess, but most countries may note that things aren’t necessarily going to get better for the British economy as they leave the EU.

The real surprise is that The UK voted against its economic interests. Most other countries are not likely to do that.

I do hope that the gains continue and I’d like to see some assignments this week for the 2 new positions opened, although, once again, I might not mind rolling them over, even if they are in the money.

Doing so, reminds me of what was fairly common practice about 5 years ago. Back then, though, volatility was high for most every stock in the purchase universe.

This time around, selected stocks and selected sectors are offering very attractive premiums, even as the broader volatility is still low.

Those premiums are sometimes hard to resist, especially if the downside seems to be well defined.

The drama was supposed to continue today, as the leader of the “Brexit” movement addressed the European Union and basically urged other countries to do the same as Great Britain, which will likely become a little less great in the coming year.

The bounce I expected to come in the early morning yesterday was pre-empted by David Cameron’s appearance in Parliament and the market really didn’t like what it had heard.

It was basically a reality check that said democracy rules in a democratic society.

Although I thought that it would be a quiet day for me, it may have been the busiest Monday in about 6 or more months, with the opportunity to open 2 new positions and rollover 2 others.

Those rollovers were a bit early and were done in an attempt to keep milking the great income producing machines that the gold related stocks have been over the past year or more.

I fully expect that by December much, if not all of the gains seen in those stocks will be lost, but I do like their ability to generate recurrent income through thick and thin.

While yesterday didn’t bring the rebound, this morning looked like it might be the real thing, despite the potential for some acrimony in the upcoming European split. The futures had been showing digit gains in the DJIA, although well off their early highs, but then mounted a comeback before the opening bell.

The rest of the world had some snap back and that may have helped. It probably didn’t hurt.

The snap back, although welcome, has still come nowhere close to erasing the declines seen in the past 2 trading sessions.

If today sticks to the script, the expectation shouldn’t be for sustainable gains, as you tend to expect people to bail out as stocks are making back some of their steep losses.

There was, however, some good signs yesterday and today’s market never really wavered.

Yesterday’s good signs were that there really wasn’t any panic and maybe more importantly, there was actually buying heading into the final hour, even as there was a reported large imbalance on the sell side.

Funny how those things seem to work out.

The expectation was for more selling going into the close and precisely the opposite happened and it definitely carried through for all of today’s session.

I doubt that I will be buying anything additional for the rest of the week, but I would definitely take advantage of any opportunity to roll positions over or to sell calls on uncovered positions.

But that isn’t any different from what I would have wanted to have done before “Brexit.”

Maybe, like so many things, the big story of the day means nothing a couple of days later, as something new grabs attention.

Unless some more shoes drop in the European Union, the story may be over until the recession so widely predicted finally happens in Great Britain, although those predictions have a funny way of not working out.